Arsenal agree £45m transfer fee for Spurs target Gabriel Jesus

It was inevitable that Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal would likely compete for a few transfer targets this summer. However, this is still pretty annoying news: Fabrizio Romano is now reporting that Arsenal have reached a verbal agreement to sign Manchester City striker Gabriel Jesus.

This isn’t entirely surprising. Arsenal has been closely linked with a move for Jesus since well before the window opened, and any links with Tottenham came late and were somewhat subdued. Jesus left Manchester City looking for more playing time as a starter, and although Tottenham can offer something this season that Arsenal can’t — Champions League football — Jesus probably wasn’t too keen on being a rotation/bench option behind Harry Kane. Hard to fault him for that.

Still, this is really annoying. £45m for a player of Jesus’ caliber is pretty darned good, though we don’t know what his wages are or how many performance-based escalators are baked into the contract. I’m not bent out of shape over this one, but I would’ve gladly taken Jesus had he been serious about wanting to come. We shouldn’t predicate our happiness on what our biggest rivals do in the transfer window, but this news has definitely knitted my eyebrows into a bit of a scowl, especially as there doesn’t seem to be much along the lines of imminent incoming transfers on the Tottenham side of North London.